Congenital rubella syndrome and physical growth: a 17-year, prospective, longitudinal follow-up in the Ryukyu Islands.

The growth of 363 children who were born with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) after the 1965 rubella epidemic in the Ryukyu Islands in southern Japan was followed prospectively from two through 17 years of age. The growth of children with cataract was obviously retarded (in terms of both height and body weight) when compared with that of other CRS children; the growth of the latter group (height and weight) was almost the same as that of the general healthy population by school age, although all CRS children were small in the preschool years. All children with CRS had smaller head circumferences than control children, with the smallest for the cataract group. The data indicate that children supposedly exposed to maternal clinical rubella before the 60th day of gestation grew poorly at least until the age of 17 years, whereas those supposedly infected after the 60th day began to return to a normal growth pattern from early school age.